Many drugs, vitamins, herbs, hormones, minerals, enzymes and other nutrients (hereinafter generally referred to as nutrients) have a very short half life in the body. A limited half life is advantageous for many nutrients because of the constantly changing conditions within a biological organism. For example, many hormones exhibit a diurnal cycle either resulting from changing metabolic activities and needs as an organism progresses through a daily cycle. For other nutrients, cycling levels are unwanted, for example, for vitamin C, a uniformly high titer is often desired.
Vitamin C is one example of a short half life nutrient. The half life of vitamin C is approximately 2 to 3 hours. Multiple dosages spaced throughout the day are essential to maintaining a desired uniformly high level of vitamin C in the body.
For other nutrients, maintaining a uniform level in a body or a tissue of an organism throughout the day is unnecessary or undesirable. For example, metabolic enhancers tend to be most effective when administered in the morning whereas other nutrients, for example, growth hormone enhancers, tend to be most effective when administered at night or before a sleep period.
Still other nutrients may require large dosages in order to be effective. For example, in order to be effective as systemic antioxidants, some vitamins would require consumption of approximately 40 tablets per day. Because of the bulk of the nutrient and/or absorptive capacity of the organism, it may be advantageous to disperse consumption of these nutrients into several doses throughout the day.
Additionally, some athletes may, as part of a multi-day training regimen, overlay a multi-day nutrient needs cycle on top of their diurnal cycle. Athletes or other competitors may also have specific chronologically determined needs, for example, an athlete may want to peak or maximize a performance during a particular scheduled event. Similarly, travelers traversing several time zones often find they must overcome their inherent diurnal cycle. A nutrient supplement satisfying their inherent or home cycle or preferably a nutrient supplement accommodating to a new cycle or helping to accommodate to a new cycle would be advantageous.
Therefore, there are several different needs for scheduling nutrient supplementation throughout the day. For some nutrients, maintenance of a uniform dosage throughout the day requires multiple scheduled administrations of nutrients throughout the day. For other nutrients, where a uniform systemic level may not be desired, scheduling timely administration of nutrients may be important. For still other supplements the physical bulk or absorptive limitations may require chronologically dispersed administrations of nutrients throughout the day. Additionally, when an individual may desire to overcome their diurnal cycle, may desire to alter their diurnal cycle or may desire to select a peak timing of their performance, a simple means for administering multiple scheduled nutritive supplements is desired.